Moving Content From One Site To Another

[ThridHour]

Generally speaking if I am just moving a couple of articles from one site to another I need to 301 redirect those old URL's to the new ones right? And even if a webpage doesn't have any links pointing to it, it is best practice to employ 301 redirects correct? After a while, after Google etc. has crawled the new location of the content you can then delete the old URL, is that right? And if other sites are linking to the old location they should be notified of the new location but even if a page has links pointing to it, is it best practice to delete that page after Google has crawled the new and you've notified the webmaster?

I've think I've got this right, I just want some clarification on this issue. Thanks.

[SamuelScott]

You're pretty much right! I'd just add a few summary points for clarification:

1. 301-redirect old URLs to the new ones

2. Change any rel=canonical tags on the old pages so that the tags reference the new URLs

3. Add rel=canonical tags to the pages on the new site and make sure that they point to those same pages

4. Inform anyone linking to the old pages that the URLs have changed.

5. Check items on the pages such as media and images so that the URLs of those items themselves are hosted on the new domain and not the old one

I would not delete the old pages (at least not right away) because you never know how long it will take Google to understand that their locations have changed. Only delete them unless you have a pressing need to do so.

If you have any other questions, let me know!